


Can You See the Skull Behind the Wedding Veil?

by soraflye (flitterfly5)



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Dark, M/M, Murder Kink, Twisted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-18 22:24:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4722587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flitterfly5/pseuds/soraflye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ohno watches, day after day, as they steal kisses in the elevator. And then one night, Jun decides to take Aiba somewhere where no one would be able to hear him scream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can You See the Skull Behind the Wedding Veil?

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I am in no way associated with J&A or any of its talents.   
> Previously posted on LJ.

  
He was just the night shift, six to six, and for what it was worth, he liked his job. Not much ever happened after 2 am, except the shadows that danced with the occasional passing car, and he could often get away with a quick nap or a little doodle here and there in his sketchbook.   
  
It was nice, he decided. Nights were nice.  
  
He turned towards the monitor he was supposed to be keeping an eye on, lingering on three frames towards the bottom right. Cameras 1, 2 and 5.   
  
The elevator cameras.   
  
There was a sensitive little muscle in his nose, and it twitched at the thought.   
  
Elevators meant closed spaces. And closed spaces meant compression. Of people, and of colors. Many, many colors.   
  
The doors slid open on Level 8, and two men tumbled breathlessly onscreen, hair ruffled and ties askew, but he knew who they were, even through the squiggly lines of the monitor. Oh, he knew  _very_ well who they were.   
  
 _Aiba and Matsumoto._  
  
The sun and the cloud. The fish and the hook. The tiny, shriveling skull behind a pristine wedding veil.   
  
Oh, he had their story painted across many an intimate canvas back home.  
  
Day after day, he had watched them dance the same dance. Aiba would laugh, his eyes like shimmer, and Matsumoto would hem him into a corner. Their hips would meet, then their hands, then their foreheads, and finally their lips, which would writhe and wrestle until the soft  _ding_  announced their arrival in the lobby, and they subsequently stepped out, one behind the other, nodding politely at him as if they were two strangers connected only by a mundane sharing of the elevator.   
  
“Good night, Ohno-san.”  
  
“’Night, Oh-chan!”  
  
“Good night,” he answered. It was the only thing he ever got to say.   
  
They were beautiful together. He drummed his fingers sadly as the door swung shut behind them.   
  
He was going to miss them—or rather,  _one_  of them—when the time came.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
It started when Aiba had moved in. The sketches, the paints, the plaster figurines. He’d gone on a flight of inspiration that day; like a maniac, he had labored, capturing every detail, hoarding every memory, taking neither sleep nor food until he had made his own little gallery of  _things_ : the curve of that arm, the splash of that birthmark, eyes behind a fringe of sweaty hair, and the neck… oh yes, the neck!... arched back to say hi, or craning forth to check the clock, or sometimes even twisted to the side, with a phone pinched between one ear and one shoulder…  
  
He would spend hours pondering. What would it feel like to poke a nose there? To have his own breath misting that pulsating hollow just under the chin?   
  
He was just the right height, too. He had noticed that the first time, and it was easily the best part of his shift—that moment when he had to stand up as Aiba exited the elevator and walked by him with that mega-watt smile.   
  
“Good night, Oh-chan!”   
  
“Good night.”   
  
There was never anything more to say. Not in words, at least.   
  
He smiled as he painted, his mind already bounding far in realms of blushy peach and deep chocolate browns. Dark eyes took shape on his canvas, blended with all the most vibrant colors of his palette. No contours existed yet to delineate a face, but he hardly minded that. Everything was already in the eyes, anyway. Every swirl of sky, every drop of ocean, and within them, just the tiniest pearl of pain.  
  
He leaned back, satisfied.   
  
 _I speak in paint, and this is chapter one of my romance._  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Matsumoto had moved in two weeks after Aiba, tall, virile, and oozing danger out of every pore. The muscles under his sleeves rippled visibly when Aiba’s head emerged from the elevator, and it took only one glance—one fateful interlocking of their eyes—to cast the die in place.   
  
He had been sitting at his usual seat behind the security desk. Now, he knew what attraction looked like when he saw it, and he could practically visualize the spindly red strings tugging the two new tenants together.   
  
Sure enough, it didn’t even take a day before he saw their first tryst in elevator 3. Matsumoto had on a heavy coat and muddy boots, while Aiba had just rushed in, drenched from the rain in nothing but a thin shirt and a pair of shorts that were now plastered against his legs. The doors closed, and by Level 2, they had already compacted themselves into one corner. Around Level 5, Matsumoto had grabbed Aiba by the chin, and by Level 6, their lips, noses, fingers and chests were all mashing up against each other in one lusty mess of wet hair and soggy clothing.   
  
He had watched as they exited on Level 8, Matsumoto in front, Aiba following behind, holding hands like they were kindergarteners on a field trip. The latter had a goofy grin on his face right before he stepped out of the elevator and out of the camera’s view.   
  
 _Well, it’s not like there’s much guesswork left as far as those two are concerned._  
  
What he hadn’t seen on the grainy monitor he could infer pretty easily anyways: the whispers, the adrenaline, the beautiful lull of trust.   
  
Unit 8C was going to be noisy tonight, he suspected, a wry smile curling his lips upward. He recalled Matsumoto’s powerful thighs and Aiba’s slim waist, and amused himself by wondering which carpet or bedsheet or tablecloth they were going to ruin first.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
It was around the second week when the pretense finally broke down. The daily dance of lips and limbs had played out as usual, but his brows had risen when he heard the  _ding_  and saw them walk out, uncharacteristically still entangled in each other.   
  
“Good night, Oh-chan!” Aiba was giggling, his beautiful brown hair glinting in a way that  _begged_  to be trapped and immortalized in dashes of chestnut gold.  
  
“Good night,” he answered. It was all he could ever say.   
  
“We won’t be back until after sunrise!” Aiba sounded strangely disinhibited—almost euphoric. “Jun-chan wants to take me where  _no one_  will hear me scream.”   
  
Was it just him, or did Aiba almost stumble as he waved goodbye?  
  
“Come now, Masaki.”   
  
He swallowed at the voice, and stepped back so the dark-faced Matsumoto could snake a very intentional arm around Aiba. The man shot him a simmering look straight in the eyes, before tightening his grip on his lover and leading him out the front door.   
  
 _The hair…_  he bit his lip, unable to shake the image.   
  
 _What reds, what browns, what burnished paints could possibly do it justice?_  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
It was before sunrise when he finally got the text.   
  
 _‘It’s done. The usual place.’_  
  
And now, he was there, looking at Aiba, at the glazed eyes and limp hair and tiny trickle of blood that was just threatening to bleach into his collar.   
  
“What a beauty,” he remarked drily.   
  
Two arms materialized from behind, and he allowed himself to sink back into a heaving chest.   
  
“Not as beautiful as you, Satoshi.” Matsumoto Jun’s lips were cracked from the tussle, and he could feel the roughness of a new scar scratching at his earlobe. Was he being nibbled at again? He smirked when a sharp nip confirmed this thought.   
  
“None are ever as beautiful as Satoshi.” The voice was getting huskier and the wandering hands belied a growing lust, but he extricated himself from their intimacy, and watched, unblinking, as a flower of blood blossomed across Aiba’s shirt.  
  
“Put him in Gallery A next to Sho-chan and the Neen.” The command was soft, but his eyes were dancing. “I think we’ve finally collected them all.”  
  
“Yes, and come tomorrow, they’ll all be gone.” Ardent lips met his, and he was almost overwhelmed by the loyal submission in Jun-kun— _his_  Jun-kun’s—kiss. “Their beauty will be a thing of the past, alive only under the strokes of my Satoshi’s brush...”  
  
“Jun-kun…”   
  
“I told you, didn’t I?” He shuddered at the clench in that deliciously cruel jaw. “Long ago, when we first met. I promised Satoshi that I’d make every beauty in the world die young…”  
  
He looked into Jun’s eyes, both thrilled and petrified at the passion in that voice.   
  
“… because my Satoshi deserves the world’s beauty  _all_  to himself.”  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
END


End file.
